Science writing, editing and workshops

An Emotion ‘Tasting’ Chart

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about emotion in fiction — how to convey it, how to evoke it. I have a lot to say about it and am sure that my comments will evolve and grow over time. For today, I simply want to point you to a very interesting chart that breaks emotions down from the primary feelings of love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear (there’s some debate on what the primary feelings are, by the way) to the secondary and tertiary emotions that those primary feelings embody.

I think this chart can be quite useful when developing the emotions of a character or the emotional arc of a scene. The chart reminds me of a wine tasting wheel like this one, which breaks down primary tastes and aromas into their subtler elements.